BJP, Left fight cash transfer, say house yet to validate it

Left and BJP on Wednesday said that they will oppose direct cash transfer of subsidy into bank accounts of beneficiaries as it is yet to be validated by the Parliament.

Speaking at Jan Sansad organised by a group of civil society bodies, CPM's Brinda Karat and BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said they will expose on the government on its scheme — cash transfer — to befool people in Parliament.

"Cash transfer is not a game-changer. It is game being played with poor people," Javadekar said. "It is an attempt by the government to fool people before elections," he added.

Karat, on the other hand, demanded that the scheme should be stopped until there is a discussion on cash transfer and Unique Identification (UID) project in the Parliament. "The government has introduced the UID project without getting the UID authority bill passed in the Parliament," she said.

The party also opposed linking national rural employment guarantee wages to Aadhaar as around biometric identification of 20% of manual workers change.

"As far as scholarships, pensions etc are concerned, most of these schemes are already cash transfer schemes through bank accounts and are fiscal neutral. The amounts and also the coverage should be increased and linked to the price index," the party said.

Reetika Kheera of IIT Delhi said the cash transfer has worked in countries like Brazil, where it has been used as incentive to use government services. "In India, cash transfer is being introduced to abdicate the government from its welfare functions," she said.